Pond Dipping

On Wednesday morning we joined in the holiday fun at our study centre doing a spot of pond dipping.

It was raining and had been for the best part of 2 days so we were expecting it to be cold and muddy, once we got into the swing of things it wasnt so bad.  First we went into the flower classroom and had to draw what we thought we might find in and around the pond, we could then use this as our tick list for anything found.

We let Willow do the drawings, you can see from the top corner the things we had in our tub at the end of the session.

Dragonfly nymphs

Grandad having a look to see if we had anything other than dead leaves!

Baby stickle backs.

Great diving beetle

We were able to identify what we had caught from these pictures and we did really well, we managed 8 different species.  I couldnt take pictures of some of them as they wouldn't keep still or pose!

We took a packed lunch and coffee tea and orange juice were provided along with a selection of biscuits.  As usual I washed up!

Time for a daft 5 minutes, they just can't help it can they lol.

Making grandad laugh...

She even made herself laugh

After lunch they all trooped into the animal house, I washed up and stood talking to one of the staff so I didn't have to go in......they have snakes......I am terrified of them.  Of course they got Victoria the python out so they could all have a stroke.....nuff said on that subject lol...

We had a brilliant 4 hours all for the princely sum of £3 per child, no charge for adults.  I put £10 in the box, it was worth every penny..

They do lots of super fun days in the holidays for the kids, its such a great resource to have on our doorstep and I do like being a volunteer there, you meet such lovely people.

Have you ever been pond dipping with the kids?

Take care

Karen xxx

A load of Pollock!

Diving into the depths of the freezer I came across this bag of fish, it's Pollock, white fish fillets, 520gms for £1:68 there were 8 small fillets in the bag.

They are only small so I defrosted 4 fillets, it was my intention to make fishcakes with them but we had visitors just before I prepared our meal so in the rush after we just had them egged and breadcrumbed and shallow fried in a pan.

They are quick to cook as they,re not very thick, we had them with new potatoes brocolli and a handful of frozen mixed veg and a blob of tartare sauce.

They were very tasty, no skin, no bones and dinner costing under £1 per person makes it a winner.  We will use the other half of the bag next week.  I will definitely buy this again, in fact it is already on my Basics shopping list for next week, I have a  voucher £10 off a £50 shop at Sainsburys this will buy us a huge trolley load....a sea of orange labels lol.

Do you buy Basics products, if so what are your favourites? 

Shhh dont tell anyone but....its stopped raining!!! :-) 

Take care

Karen xxx

Family tree, sad story.

                                                                         Stanley Farm

Whilst trawling the web for information about our family history we came across a sad story in a cutting from the Derby Mercury for April 19th 1912.
My Hubby's great Aunt Annie had been ill for most of her 50 years having had rheumatic fever which left her with a weak heart. She had been confined to her bed by her doctor for the last 13 weeks, and with no improvement in sight had become depressed. So weak was she that, at the Doctor's suggestion, a rope had been fixed to the ceiling so that she could raise herself in bed.
Sadly, whilst her husband John was away in Derby, Annie was found by their servant girl to be hanging, unconscious, from the rope in her room. When she was cut down life was found to be extinct.

Whilst we were in Stanley last Monday we made a point of finding the Farm house where she had lived and in our own way, paid our respects.

It doesn't look a very inviting place at all, quite bleak and unloved, what a shame, it was quite sad to see it and to imagine what had happened there all those years ago.  I guess there are always down sides to tracing your family tree.

Back later with the pond dipping session :-)

Take care
Karen xx

The Rocky Road to Cake

As its the school holidays Willow is here for a couple of days and today we are going to the Study Centre for a Pond Dipping session, its absolutely chucking it down at the moment :-( guess we are going to get wet and muddy! Good job she had a baking session yesterday and made these delicious treats to share.

Rocky Road.  We had to test it as soon as its set, just a small square each is enough, its very sweet.

And a Sandwich Cake with butter cream stuffed with marshmallows and then decorated with. Chocolate buttons and more marshmallows!

We both had a lovely couple of hours, Willow did the measuring and mixing and I did the oven bit and the washing up and for the Rocky Road I did the melting of the butter and syrup willow did everything else.  Im sure she would have managed to do it all but being Grandma I didnt want any burns happening and besides I wanted fun too :-) 

We are taking them to share......unless..... Theres a change of mind ........ Or its raining too hard!  

Either way we are going to my sons for tea tonight when we take Willow back and I just had a text to say its Venison casserole....yum!

Have a lovely day, whatever your plans are and I hope its not raining for you.

Love Karen xxx

Family tree research.

The reason for our little mini break last week was to visit a couple of village's where we knew some of hubbys ancestors had lived and worked.  One is a tiny hamlet called Dale Abbey about 5miles north east of Derby, there is very little left of the abbey but the village was a delightful place. The pit and the cottages are also long gone but we had a walk to where they had been just to get a feel for the place, it was a scorching hot day and we made for the Church and the old graveyard to see if we could find anyone with our name.....unfortunately none were found :-( 

All Saints Church Dale Abbey.  Its quite an odd building, Church at one side and the timber front bit was built as an infirmary and then later turned into a pub! Its now a private residence with a new extention to the side and back, but the little church is still in use.

Just look at the size of that key, its huge! I let Philip do the honours of opening it for us.

Look at the leaning pulpit, its dated 1634. 

I dont think there was a straight bit of timber in the whole building. Look behind Philips head and you will see a wall painting dating back to the 12 th century.

This is the original font from the abbey.

The seating was little booths all built from lovely wood, it gave you a warm peaceful feeling when you you ran your hand over it, you could just imagine Philips family sat in one dressed in Sunday best, best hat on listening to the sermon and having a good old sing.  Wonderful!!

We came out of the Church and walked into the wood round the back, it was probably a favourite place to play for the familys children. It certainly had an interesting feature....

It was a lovely woodland walk, a bit squidgy underfoot and not really one to do wearing sandalls....me! 

We also walked through the buttercup filled meadow to look at the Abbey ruins.

Sorry there was no way to get a whole photo, I only had my iphone and right behind us was a live electric fence!  Even though we didnt find any evidence of any Hartshorns being there other than whats documented we had a lovely visit and would like to go again in the future.

When the pit was closed, due to a disaster, the family moved a few miles along to a village called Stanley, it was here we found lots of Hartshorns in the cemetery of Saint Andrews Church, we knew family had also been married here.

I took lots of photos of graves some we havent yet traced to the family but we have traced this chap and his wife, they are on our family tree as 5th Great Grand  Parents of my hubby.

 

John Hartshorn died June 16th 1782 aged 43 and his wife Hannah aged 86, it was a pity we couldnt read the whole inscription.  Now we know for sure they were family I would like to go back and take some flowers.  

We also visited Stanley Farm, where a family death occured, more on that later......

Researching your Family Tree is very rewarding when you can actually touch, feel and see where your ancestors came from and Philip said he had a strange feeling of belonging.....

Take Care

Karen xxx

Thank you and a taste test.

First of all I would like to thank you all for commenting on my Vintage or Just old post, it sparked a few nice memories for lots of you. I loved reading about your still in use wedding presents and a little surprised at how many of us had the same lovely bedding.  It will be our Ruby Wedding Anniversary on the 22nd of June, we are still a bit unsure how we will celebrate it, but it will most probably be just the two of us, nice and quiet with a bottle of bubbly, if we are at home I would like to go back to the church in Thorne where it all began 40 years ago.

Back to todays post....  As you have gathered we have just had a mini break in the caravan while the sun was shining, we came home a couple of days early as lots if heavy rain was forecast and it was right, todays has been very wet and its still raining now!  I have some photos to share about what we have been up to, but, as neither of us remembered to take the big camera they are only phone photos :-(  and I need to sort out the best ones first!

Meanwhile.... We did a Coleslaw taste test for a bit of fun.

We tried Aldi Premium first at 69p a tub

Not bad, nice and crunchy with a creamy taste, not at all runny or bitter.

Then we tried Co op at £1:15 for the same size tub

This was a finer cut with a few bits of green in, chives I think, but they didn't add anything to the flavour, this was just as creamy as the Aldi one and to be honest we couldn't taste any difference between the two products.  We both declared them ok but not as nice as homemade, coleslaw is so easy to make and doesn't require lots of ingredients, traditionally its just cabbage and carrot smothered in mayo but in our house its sometimes a case of whatever is to hand in the veg and salad drawers chopped into some basics mayo.

Verdict.....Aldi 7/10 ......Co op. 7/10...... Homemade. 10/10... Personal choice :-)

Neither Aldi or Co op have asked me to write this post I just thought it might be of interest to you.

Which do you prefer.......shop bought or homemade?

Take care

Karen xxx

 

Hello

Just back from a lovely mini break, will play catch up with you all tomorrow :-) xx

Vintage or just old!

This year my lovely hubby and I have been married 40 years!! So does that make us Vintage or just old? :-)

Yesterday with it being such a lovely day I washed the caravan bedding just to give it a nice fresh smell after it has been stored all winter. This morning I was ironing a couple of the pillowcases and it made me smile, the reason being they were bought as a wedding present for us and have been used many many times over the past 40 years.

They are getting a bit thin and bit faded but still plenty of life left in them, the douvet cover is long gone, pity! But that had lots of use until it just about fell to bits, I think these survived better because these were the top pillow-cases and we slept on the bottom pillows so they didnt get as much wear.  If I ever come across the matching douvet cover in a charity shop I will buy it just for old times sake.

So, after 40 years does that make them Vintage or just old?

Then I had another little smile....

The ironing board was also a wedding present!  Its had lots of new covers, in fact its ready for one now but underneath its still the same one! This has seen lots of service over the years.....and I HATE ironing, always have! 

So, after 40 years, is this Vintage or just old :-)

Do you have wedding presents that are still in use today and are they Vintage or just old? or are you very young and newly married? 

Whatever you are doing this weekend, have fun and take care.

Love Karen xxx

At last!

At last the hard work in garden is done and the wheels are back on the caravan!

We have spent a few hours this afternoon cleaning the winter dirt and green  off the caravan, boy did it take some doing.  Hubby did the roof first with the big washy brush thing while I was weeding and planting up the garden with some petunias and geraniums.  I heard an almighty crash...the A frame ladder had collapsed, the clip holding it together had snapped and hubby ended up flat on his face on the concrete, thank goodness after 10 minutes rest and a drink,  he was ok, just a scraped elbow and a sore knee, he will probably be stiff and bruised in the morning. 

Back to work and getting it finished off.  It looks lovely and its now ready for packing up and ready for the off...soon I hope!

Meanwhile I got on with the garden

I am so pleased we made the decision to alter this big bed, its much easier to manage and the new grass is coming on a treat. I'm filling in the gaps where the bluebells have been with homegrown plants.

Hubby is going to put some evergreen feed and weed on this part of the garden next week, it will give it a boost, the bit near to the house is looking better after its treatment a few weeks ago,  he does it in stages every couple of years. I'm not really keen on putting chemicals on the garden but this is such a big expanse of grass its impossible to hand weed and this is the easiest option for us.

Having a minute to admire the shiny caravan and my gardening efforts..... he looks shattered!  I think he needs a holiday now :-) I know I do!

Back tomorrow and many thanks to all who commented yesterday.

Love Karen xxx